Healthcare communications and marketing news and information

Earlier this month Michael Moore announced that his new documentary “Sicko” has “been selected to be part of the main program of this year's Cannes Film Festival.”  As many know, the film will focus negative attention on the usual suspects (i.e., the pharmaceutical industry and managed care organizations). Moore also appears to be a big fan of universal healthcare, as evidenced by a recent trip he took to Cuba with 9/11 first responders.  According to the New York Post:

“Filmmaker Michael Moore's production company took ailing Ground Zero responders to Cuba in a stunt aimed at showing that the U.S. health-care system is inferior to Fidel Castro's socialized medicine, according to several sources with knowledge of the trip.”

However, conservative groups are not planning to take Moore’s documentary sitting down.  Today Consumers for Healthcare Choices (CHCC) announced via its e-newsletter, "Consumer Power Report," that it is funding an anti-Moore film, “Sicker and Sicker.” Taking a page out of Moore’s playbook, the documentary will “feature Canadian patients coming to the United States to get care that was unavailable to them in their own Nirvana.”  The film is scheduled to be released at the same time as Moore’s “Sicko” -- if it is funded.   

It will be interesting to watch CHCC’s and Moore’s supporters duke it out for the public’s attention and sympathy.  Want to take bets on who will come out on top?